Lessons

Lesson Info

10 One Light Set-ups: 3 to 5

Lock the box with two white phil cards right? This is one of the ways to eliminate shadow so everything that I've done so far has been pretty flat lit right got our loop or paramount not too much shadow more or less in the front over the little bit of loop shadow here then the same thing but with a silver reflected at a little bit of pop right same things we keep it roughly paramount what I'm going to do is box her in and that's why number three is called beauty box so I am going tio hold white reflectors n a v now while it looks a little bit awkward for her to do it word him you can also take a piece of white foam core fold in half and then it's a v without any effort or you can use what I said the last light trife lecter I used and I'm going to bring them together in the center is that doable? I could get you've just been white phone court so what'll d'oh it's going to capture all the light and give you just like a really white really white soft look to the image so what it does is t...

he light hits her face, bounces down into these phil cards and pops back up the thing they wanted all take it you know the bounce around it'll be really soft and smooth what this is good for is if you're doing like a beauty portrait or a woman with a lot of wrinkles and you want to soften it out because this fills in those wrinkles everywhere from below and you can still shape her face with a higher light if you want to give her a little bit of cheekbone iwant to shape but this is just going to soften them up um the other thing to keep in mind is this will just feel from below if it's held like this if you put it on either side of the face it just fills from the side or if you do really close like this this is what will fill out the shadows the most this is what is going to fill in the most so where you place these reflectors this will just catch light on either side this would just fill in from below so I do like a v right there and that's why I used like the foam core folded in half so we do one more can I borrow your physic and I'll have you guys hold it really really close we're going like like like super super like that ok so you're going to see I can get rid of shadows almost completely and papa pure and a little bit more john yeah here we go perfect thank you guys so this is going to be very, very high key on the skin mean very flat, very glowing, minimal shadows so it's this kind of ah angelique look to her building on this later on when you get to that point, you could put this on a white background and it has that really glowing look to it. So I call this beauty box that you remember box her in boxer and with reflectors, okay, no, we're going to pop over to number four and it's a big octo box in rembrandt position. So remember, rembrandt is when you have the triangle of light underneath the eye and you can do this in broad light or short like position, which just means how dramatic is it? Is the shadow coming towards the camera or going away? Or is it going sideways? Just depends on what you want, so I'm going to dio rembrandt in front and can I put it back to not boom that okay, I would do it for people that don't have a boom arm because I know many people don't and you don't need to have it. Okay, perfect. And then I know he's fixing it, but again, like I definitely see people who put soft boxes right next to the person it's, like nine to sixteen inches above their head, is usually where you want to be the perfect vehicle all right, so and all have you put that down for a second? So what I look for and kids kind of makes light in here, so you can't quite see, but I am looking for when I bring a ford keep going, keep going. I'm looking for a little triangle like going like a triangle of light right there underneath her eyes to something like that and I'm doing if I lower it a little bit just a little any always down a little bit more. Okay, cool. Thank you. So something like that and what I'm looking for is I take a look in the on the shadow of the nose and I see a little bit of shadow, a little bit of shadow, and I'm waiting for that shadow of the nose to meet the cheek right there like that's when it doesn't that's what I'm looking for to give me that perfect rembrandt pet peeve of mine it's? Not huge, so don't worry, but a small pet peeve is when somebody goes to do rembrandt like, but they miss a little sliver of light on the side of the face like it like it will be a triangle and that shattered isn't quite close and there's like a little bit of highlight here, and the only reason it that it bothers me is it draws attention to like this you're gonna mean it like draws attention to perhaps the person has a little bit extra skin there so I try to either close it all the way or have it purposefully loop instead that's just an aesthetic thing so let's see if I fix it oh, you know more time. Okay, let's try at six three ok okay looks good so it's going to pop up and you'll see that and uh it's see, I'm almost doing it here like any more than this would bother making you see what I'm talking about like they're just if there's a little bit of highlight there I don't think it's super flattering but other than that this is nice rembrandt light if I bring it even further over I can make it be a smaller triangle as long as there's a triangle underneath her eye that counts as rembrandt but I can also keep in mind that I could turn her in your head that way for me and it's not rembrandt anymore so it's just it's the position of the light so it would be rembrandt you look lovely you do good with drama. Okay, so next one is rembrandt oh yeah put a couple of questions this one came from meriel check when a person's faith is very on symmetrical you shoot at forty five degree angle but how do you decide which side to shoot so is there a particular reason why you put the light or her on one side or the other? So there tends to be a couple of things that I do first of all, I look at people and whatever side of the faith this is general, this is a generalization not always true, but generally whatever side of the face, someone parts the hair, they prefer that side of the face, so probably I'm going to guess and it could be totally wrong with selfies for you you probably take it like this because that's the site and she shook her head yes that's the side of the face you referred because what you're doing is you're saying this is the side I look like look right here and that's what people party so I'm not sure about you but which says it's true okay, so this is kind of what I'll do so I make sure there's more light and more attention paid to the side of the face where people's part is so for her example, she has a parted on she switches if you want to know why because she's perfectly symmetrical. Okay, seriously like, okay, uh she's perfectly symmetrical so it doesn't matter for her, but it would be that same kind of thing is if I were trying to draw attention to that side so it's how I make a decision and then sometimes they will call it research instead of stocking but we check out their facebook page to see what side they're they prefer that helps me out to its research very good practical tips so we have a question in the background when do you when you use rim brand I feel like it's kind of an outdated kind of look but at the same time I know you could make it look cool song yeah, so whenever I want drama but I don't you should remember it as just a portrait I usually use it for me personally, like something for styling so it's remember and I don't flatten it out so kind of come to the other side for example, rembrandt light and I'm gonna get this something great around here. Um I wouldn't necessarily just have it fall to shadow. I might fill it in with, like, white phil so the shape is still there and it still has a little bit of that pretty shape of light. Let me test it. Yeah, go for it. Okay, that's good to see you and train hundreds like a tiny bit good so she'll still have that triangle but it's barely visible because we filled it in with white phil so it just gives you a little more shape I think in the very beginning of my presentation like way back at the beginning there was a girl that I said with one light and she had like this this funky floral head piece on and she's standing there like this that was rembrandt like so and it worked cool for drama tying into that. The next step for rembrandt light is if you have remember it light instead of just leaving it that way you can pop in white or you can pop in silver and how I've done it before it's kind of yeah exactly okay, so you're catching light so where john is here is this light is going it's like ping pong ball ok it's going to bounce back off of that reflector and right now you can the camera should be able to see it she has really nice highlight I'm her shoulder on her cheekbone and on her jaw line so I can give her separation I can give her a kicker light this isn't even phil this is a kicker light from that silver reflector if I made it white, I don't think I would be able to see it very much it would give her a little separation but this actually gives her pop so I'm going to take a quick shot of that I can see it I can see your right shoulder a little go and let me hunt before just a little bit right there perfect and I get this question endlessly what do you do if you don't have an assistant? There are million stands made to hold reflectors it's just it's kind of in the way to have to stand here and I have a lovely assistant soon he's making a stand for us so for example he's hanging it there but if you look in this example we didn't rembrandt light and I use the silver reflector and that's what separates her out from the background so if this weren't a white background that's turned gray if this was a black background she wouldn't blend into the background anymore I could use that reflector to separate her so what you need to do is you have to learn to see light and actually take a look at the angle yeah, like maybe even turn it back towards her a little bit like that were right there perfect you may be like a half step out like a little bit so what I'm looking for is that nice highlight on her jaw. Okay, this is a dramatic one reason and I'll tell you why I got more dramatic when two pops up see this okay so it's a really crisp highlight and I don't have another room light it's not barn doors it's nothing else is just the reflector the reason why is before the reflector was a little bit more out to the side, so when the light hits from the side here, what it does is it wraps around a little bit if you can get that reflected from a little bit more of an angle from behind, it basically just hits the jaw and it doesn't wrap so that's why it will be a little bit more crisp and then I'm having him angle that reflector to try to catch the light if you angle it even like a foot off, you're totally missing like you're trying to catch that light and bounce it right back in, so this would be my next one we've got and this could be rembrandt or it could be loop it doesn't matter just you need a little shadow because if you paramount this right, if you have this light totally flat, the light is pointed behind, there is nothing to catch in the reflector because it would have to be behind her to catch it right it's got to be lined up, so you do have to have at least loop mean, you have to have a little bit of an angle or rembrandts that you have some ability to catch that light and give you definition, so that would be my number five. Octa box with rembrandt and then use that silver reflector to catch play ping pong with that light gets the separation on the john the shoulder yes about your showing a lot of examples with this silver but could you remind us again if people have a gold side? Would you use that for different skin tones? I almost never used gold I cannot I've used silver gold sometimes for a darker skin tone to like warm up a tiny bit, but it still ends up being like this is white and then there's just random gold highlight coming from somewhere that I don't know why it belongs, so I silver gold sometimes I never personally use gold and then just related to this as well as I was saying, if you use white you'd see the highlight but it's not going to be crisp it would just be a little bit of phil just a little bit of a separation but no definition doors late in the day golden hour at all I don't use it I just silver gold I don't either yeah, those sometimes during the day at least on movie sets they use blue reflectors because most of the light around you is blue sky, so to keep it clean use go to blue which would only usually see in still photography that much but cinema set things blue I didn't know that okay, now I'm gonna go with that up as awesome thiss rings me into a good point as well, when you are using rim lines and, uh, reflectors to catch your family, you wanted to be equal to the shoulder or higher, because if he lowers that light down too much, if you can go low enough, what happened? It's it's kicking light at an upward angle, and I can I can, I can, I can! I can see it on her jaw a little bit, but not really her shoulder, because it's hitting her back instead of her shoulder, let me give it a try, flicks lucy. So what you'll see is I've got that nice separation on the shoulder, but not on this one because it's just too low, so I usually go about even or higher because then I can kick that light down and the higher I go without light to kick it down, the more it'll wrap around because it doesn't have that shoulder in the way to stop it. So now, beautiful definition, separation it's up a little bit strange that'll be a little bit more separation and john, can you pull it back that way just a little bit, uh, you're right and that in closer to her. Good yeah felt like some right there and so that's what? I just keep like looking for it so that's why I use modeling lights as well. All right, so that is number five questions on that and let me know if you guys have any in here question is is there a way to create greater catch lights in the eyes when using rembrandt lighting using bait like bigger catch lines though that means greater greater um okay, so eager for something like this right now I'm really close. Okay, so yes, the answer is yes here's what you here's what she did right now I'm really, really close and so in order to get the rembrandt light tio actually to actually form a triangle the light wraps around so much that I've I've got to be far back, but at least if I am to the front a little bit more like I can get rembrandt there and the catch late would be bigger. So in other words, if I can pull it out a little bit it doesn't it's not quite rapping as much so I see bigger catch lights in this way s so it has to do with like, a little bit of the angle so let me give this a test and can you pull it back just a tiny bit since I moved the light it changes everything anyway and both and lowering the light luring away it will bring more catch lights so what I did they pulled it out and around front a little bit more catch let's just get a little bit bigger and so this depends on the size you have and of course if you have a bigger modifier it would be easier in my case it was a small lot of viruses trying to bring it close, but in doing that catch lake just get kind of cut off so I can bring it down and around a little bit seymour catch lights follow on to what one of the questions was talking about are you yeah, the angle of your camera that you're shooting relative to her and the light is their rules to follow for that as well where you're shooting from sure. So what I'm looking at right now and I'm looking at her as I'm looking at the catch lights in her eyes and I know if I go like this she droops her eyes to match me like she looks down to match me what ends up happening is the catch lights shrink as I see more of her eyelids, so I'm just being cognisant I'm just trying to be aware and sometimes if I have dramatic light but their eyes were just a little bit droopy you're missing that catch like I'll stand on an apple box and they have to flick their eyes up at me, and it catches the light in their eyes. So related to that I've had subjects that have just general that have deep set or droopy eyes in deep set or droopy eye subjects. I tend not to have the light as closer is high, because if I can back it up a little bit and have it a little bit lower, it gives me a little bit more fill in their eyes. And with those subjects, I give them a reflector to try to get. If I can't get a catch late above because their droopy, then I'll give them a silver reflector below to populate in the eyes. And I tend to find this with women at the end of a long day who never wear eyelashes that have had the eyelashes on. I don't know if anyone's had this, but by the end of the day, their eyes is our opening all the way. So I have to kind of modify my light to help them out.